China put a rover on the moon called Jade Rabbit, which is all well and good — but it’s already having technical difficulties dealing with the moon’s atmosphere. That’s kind of a big problem if you want your rover to work on the moon. As night falls on the moon, China is trying to fix Jade Rabbit, but there’s a good chance that it won’t recover. The rover has been “writing” about its experiences in the Chinese media, and his latest entry is a sort of goodbye letter. How better to present this semisweet moment than dressing up Star Trek‘s Patrick Stewart as the rover and having him read the final lines? That’s what The Daily Show did. The whole segment provides good coverage of the incident, but you can skip to 4:50 if you just want to see Stewart in gold foil and styrofoam like some old Doctor Who monster. Read more…

Being an manga fanboy Daomu caught my attention: It’s a upcoming graphic novel which is based on a series of Chinese novels and will be released by Image Comics. The adaption into English is being done by Concept Art House and the series has already done well in China. Manga has done well in the United States, but this may be a chance or Chinese manhua to gain a foothold. Here’s a preview of the book: Read more…

Some of you might recognize the man above as Guan Yu, the 3rd century General of Shu, who was later deitized as the god of war, and brotherhood. However, I’m sure most of you noticed that he looks an awful lot like a certain Autobot — and not just any Autobot, but the big man himself, Optimus Prime. Recently, some students at China’s Central Academy Of Fine Arts claim to have created this 9.7 meter monster out parts from an an old truck, costing them roughly $4,500 USD. Supposedly, the only original parts are the face and blade. While I have my doubts, you have to admit that it still looks pretty cool. Now if only someone made a toy out of this, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. Read more…

This amazing video shows Mr. Woo a folk artist from China who builds beautiful homemade robots from scratch. What’s even more amazing is that he has no formal engineering training, in other words he a very talented hobbyist with a passion for robotics. By the way my favorite part of the video occurs at 3:40 when a robot stars walking by with a rickshaw. Found via the very talented Angel Wardriver.Read more…

Not so long ago a friend was asking me why animation in China was never as strong as Japan: A simple answer would be that because of Mao’s Communism from 1949 until 1976 that it was very hard for creative artists to express themselves in China, and especially even more so during the cultural revolution in the 60s. However it should be noted that there is a growing industry there today, in fact most of the hard work done to create Japanese anime is outsourced to China. Read more…

The main selling point of the Coffee Prides Motion is that unlike a Japanese maid café not only can you read a manga while drinking your coffee but that you can actually draw a manga too. This first café in the cyber city district of Zhongguancun (which is in Beijing, China) is that there are classes on how to draw cartoons. The building which houses the café also sells all sorts of anime goodies as well: Read more…

The fake iPhones from China are getting much better as time goes on! It should be noted that this is the second (or maybe third?) generation of iClones to hit the markets in China and each time they seem to get better. What’s impressive about this version is that not only does it sport an Apple logo (much improved without that pesky bite mark) but the touch interface looks like the real deal: Read more…